soirée de performances hypermédiatiques bleuOrange

Vous êtes cordialement invitées, invités à la soirée de performances hypermédiatiques bleuOrange, mettant en vedette J .R. Carpenter, Jason E. Lewis et David Jhave Johnston, trois artistes reconnus pour leurs pratiques d’écriture faisant usage des technologies numériques. Ils seront suivis d’une prestation du groupe Graffiti Research Lab – Canada.

J.R. Carpenter est la récipiendaire du Carte Blanche Quebec Award décerné par la Quebec Writer’s Foundation, elle a remporté deux fois la CBC Quebec Short Story Competition, ainsi que, plus récemment, le Expozine Alternative Press Award dans la catégorie Best English Book pour son premier roman, Words the Dog Knows. Ses œuvres de littérature électronique ont été présentées partout dans le monde. Elle est présidente du conseil d’administration du Laboratoire des Nouveaux Médias OBORO à Montréal.
http://luckysoap.com

Artiste du Web, David Jhave Johnston a débuté sa pratique comme poète avant d’intégrer les outils informatiques et numériques à sa production. Il est engagé dans de nombreuses collaborations, notamment avec le collectif torontois Year01 dans le cadre duquel il agit régulièrement à titre de commissaire. Son travail a été présenté notamment aux Biennales d'art contemporain de Montréal, en 2003, et de Toronto, en 2004. Diplômé de l'université Concordia en 2004 en Sciences informatiques, il a également complété une maîtrise en Arts interactifs à l'université Simon Fraser (Vancouver) en 2005 et est actuellement doctorant à Concordia.
http://www.glia.ca

Jason E. Lewis est un artiste des médias numériques et un designer de logiciels. Il est le fondateur de Obx Laboratory for Experimental Media, où il est le directeur des projets de recherche et de création. Leur objet est de trouver de nouvelles manières de produire et de lire des textes numériques, de développer des systèmes permettant un usage créatif de la technologie mobile, d’assurer le design d’interfaces alternatives pour des performances artistiques en direct et d’utiliser des environnements virtuels afin d’assister les communautés aborigènes dans la préservation, l’interprétation et la communication de leur histoire culturelle. Obx Labs est dévoué au développement de nouvelles formes d’expression en travaillant simultanément sur le plan conceptuel, créatif et technique. Les œuvres et les écrits de Jason E. Lewis sur les médias ont fait l’objet d’expositions et de conférences sur quatre continents. Il est présentement professeur associé au département des arts informatiques de l’Université Concordia.
http://www.obxlabs.net

Graffiti Research Lab – Canada. Quand la voix du peuple ne peut se faire entendre par les moyens traditionnels, la population doit opter pour des méthodes subversives. Entraîné dans les profondeurs de la plus grande jungle urbaine de la planète, le Graffiti Research Lab déploie un groupe d’agents canadiens de niveau Splinter Cell élite pour combattre l’establishment et pénétrer la conscience des masses. Extrêmement efficaces dans l’utilisation d’Armes de Défiguration Massive, ces agents dévoyés travaillent à la libération du peuple, et contre la guerre psychologique des agences de publicité. Leurs armes? Peindre avec la lumière et diffuser avec des lasers.
http://www.GraffitiResearchLab.ca

Les performances auront lieu le samedi 2 mai 2009, à 20 heures
à l’Agora Hydro-Québec du Coeur des sciences de l'UQAM
175, avenue du Président-Kennedy, Montréal
Métro Place-des-Arts, accès entre l'UQAM et l'église au toit rouge

Entrée libre
La revue bleuOrange (http://revuebleuorange.org) profitera du colloque international Histoires et Archives, arts et littératures hypermédiatiques (colloque2009.nt2.uqam.ca) pour tenir une soirée de performances d’œuvres hypermédiatiques le 2 mai 2009 à 20 h, et souligner le lancement du second numéro de bleuOrange, revue de littérature hypermédiatique.

bleuOrange est un projet soutenu par le Laboratoire NT2 : Nouvelles technologies, nouvelles textualités et Figura, le Centre de recherche sur le texte et l’imaginaire, tous deux rattachés au Département d’études littéraires à l’Université du Québec à Montréal.

INFORMATIONS
Alice van der Klei
Rédactrice en chef
bleuOrange, revue de littérature hypermédiatique
514 987.3000 poste 1931
info@revuebleuorange.org
http://revuebleuorange.org


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A Book-ish Novel: Transmediation in Words the Dog Knows at MiT6, April 24, 2009

I will be presenting a paper called "A Book-ish Novel: Transmediation in Words the Dog Knows" at MiT6: Stone and Papyrus, Storage and Transmission, an international conference taking place at MIT April 23-27, 2009. In this paper I will trace the paths that select portions of my first novel, Words the Dog Knows, have traveled: from ear to eye to pen to paper to computer to printer to publisher to video to audio to web to eye to ear and back to pen again, with the novel’s precursive zines and web-based iterations as visual aides.

J. R. Carpenter, A Book-ish Novel: Transmediation in Words the Dog Knows
Friday, April 24, 2009, 2:30-4 room 66-168 (campus map).

MiT6: Stone and Papyrus, Storage and Transmission, MIT April 23-27, 2009.

In his seminal essay "The Bias of Communication" Harold Innis distinguishes between time-based and space-based media. Time-based media such as stone or clay, Innis agues, can be seen as durable, while space-based media such as paper or papyrus can be understood as portable, more fragile than stone but more powerful because capable of transmission, diffusion, connections across space.

Speculating on this distinction, Innis develops an account of civilization grounded in the ways in which media forms shape trade, religion, government, economic and social structures, and the arts. Our current era of prolonged and profound transition is surely as media-driven as the historical cultures Innis describes.

His division between the durable and the portable is perhaps problematic in the age of the computer, but similar tensions define our contemporary situation. Digital communications have increased exponentially the speed with which information circulates. Moore's Law continues to hold, and with it a doubling of memory capacity every two years; we are poised to reach transmission speeds of 100 terabits per second, or something akin to transmitting the entire printed contents of the Library of Congress in under five seconds.

Such developments are simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying. They profoundly challenge efforts to maintain access to the vast printed and audio-visual inheritance of analog culture as well as efforts to understand and preserve the immense, enlarging universe of text, image and sound available in cyberspace. What are the implications of these trends for historians who seek to understand the place of media in our own culture?

What challenges confront librarians and archivists who must supervise the migration of print culture to digital formats and who must also find ways to preserve and catalogue the vast and increasing range of words and images generated by new technologies? How are shifts in distribution and circulation affecting the stories we tell, the art we produce, the social structures and policies we construct?

What are the implications of this tension between storage and transmission for education, for individual and national identities, for notions of what is public and what is private?

The first Media in Transition conference was held in 1999 and marked the launch of the MIT graduate program in Comparative Media Studies. Since then, four bi-annual conferences have been held, co-sponsored by CMS and the MIT Communications Forum, with each new conference generating a more internationally diverse audience than its predecessor.

I have presented at two previous Media in Transition conferences:

MiT4: the work of stories (2005)

MiT5: creativity, ownership and collaboration in the digital age (2007)
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OBORO’s 25th Anniversary - April 18 - May 2, 2009

To celebrate the creative energy that has been flowing through OBORO over the past 25 years and, most of all, to express our deep gratitude to our community, artists and partners, we are organizing a great party with an opening banquet, performances, a garden-exhibition, a day for children, an art auction, an outdoor ceremony and many more surprises.

Let the festivities begin… and continue!

Banquet and Gallery Opening
Saturday, April 18, 2009, at 5pm

You are invited to a banquet launching our 25th anniversary festivities! Join us in celebrating the creative energy that has been flowing through OBORO over the past 25 years as we express our deep gratitude to our community, artists and partners.

Spring winds have breezed into our preparations: on the night of April 18th, OBORO completes its transformation into a lush and cheerful garden. Multicoloured platters will carry succulent fragrances and exquisite morsels as an offering to guests and friends. Throughout the evening, bustling performances, sparks of music and magical winks will flutter by, and each visitor will receive a special edition work created for the occasion.

Masters of Ceremony: Pierre Beaudoin and Claudine Hubert

Opening banquet performers: Yves Alavo and Mehdi Benboubakeur, Choeur Maha, Raf Katigbak, Cheryl Sim, Roger Sinha, Ziya Tabassian

Oboros’ Art Auction
Saturday, April 18, 2009, 5pm to 11pm

The works created for the exhibition will be on auction from 5pm to 11pm on Saturday April 18th. Proceeds of all sales will go towards OBORO’s endowment fund, created so that OBORO can continue its significant support of artists and the art community over the years to come. For a sneak peek of the works you’ll have a chance to bid on, visit: oboros album

Exhibition
Saturday, April 18, 2009 – Saturday, May 2, 2009

From April 18th to May 2nd, the gallery will be transformed into a luxuriant garden, populated with oboros grown from the imagination of more than a hundred artists. While meandering through the exhibition, visitors will discover surprising and engaging works of every stripe and be offered a flavourful cup of hot tea served by no less than the world-famous "Trolley Bus," master of ceremonies of the World Tea Party. And somewhere in the middle of the garden safari, the small exhibition room will await inspired visitors who wish to create their own oboro.

Children’s Day
Saturday, April 25, 2009, at 2pm

On Saturday, April 25, from 2pm to 4pm, parents and children are invited to drop by the workshop and create an oboro in the company of a facilitator. In order to rejuvenate creative perspectives and quicken critical eyes, the children, following their whims, will offer guided tours of the exhibit to the adults.

Performance by Claude-Marie Caron
Saturday, April 25, 2009, at 4pm

Inspired by Lautréamont’s famous words "beautiful as the fortuitous encounter of an umbrella and a sewing machine on a dissection table," Beau comme is constructed as an allegorical self-portrait of Claude-Marie Caron as he celebrates 25 years of OBORO. Inventor of the name and member of OBORO’s first Board of Directors, Claude-Marie Caron is a multidisciplinary artist, a performer, a tailor and a master-teacher of Tai-Chi.

Closing Ceremony
Saturday, May 2, 2009, at 3pm
at La Fontaine Park (corner of Rachel and Parc-La Fontaine)

For the Closing Ceremony, OBORO’s garden relocates to Parc La Fontaine, where everyone is invited to join for an outdoor picnic and to attend a planting of a tree in the parc. As an inspiration to future decades and an offering to the community, this tree encompasses OBORO’s mission: to contribute to our collective heritage and to a culture of peace.

Manifestoboro

For the 25th Anniversary, artists and close collaborators of OBORO have banded together to create the Manifestoboro, a collaborative nursery-rhyme/drawing/poem/manifesto for your pleasure and inspiration:

OBORO est un salon
OBORO is peace
OBORO is possibility
OBORO est un souffle
OBORO is an art family
OBORO est alimentaire
OBORO est l’arbre et la forêt
OBORO est un terrain de jeu
OBORO est un processus in process
OBORO is an ocean-in-motion
OBORO is a very old jade plant
OBORO est une tête chercheuse
OBORO is a big table in the sunlight
OBORO is a series of concentric circles
OBORO is living art, looking and listening
OBORO est tout ce qui n’est pas OBORO
OBORO is a bucket of toys waiting for kids
OBORO est un gâteau d’anniversaire rose et jaune
OBORO is a refreshing cup of tea served up in porcelaine
OBORO is food for thought and a feast for the eyes
OBORO is curious, challenging, déroutant et impromptu
OBORO est un « o » entre deux « o », un grand cercle, un oeil
OBORO est le lieu où se décline gracieusement ou furieusement le temps
OBOROBOROBORO
OBORO de vie

Download the Manifestoboro (pdf)

OBORO’S 25th ANNIVERSARY FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN

Make a donation and receive an official receipt for income tax purposes!

For each dollar raised between now and July 30, 2009, OBORO will receive an additional $2,50!
Thanks to the support of the Placements Culture program at the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canadian Arts and Sustainability Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage. All proceeds will go towards OBORO’s endowment fund to help us continue supporting artists and the art community over the years to come.
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Book Launch - Art Textiles of the World: Canada

A recent essay by J.R. Carpenter entitled "Mapping Multiplicities: A Narrative of Contingences" has just been published in a new art book, launching on Wednesday, April 15, 2009, at the Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles, 5800 St-Denis Studio 501, Montréal, at 5 pm.

Art Textiles of the World: Canada features essays by Alan Elder, Sandra Alfoldy, J.R. Carpenter, and Lisa Vinebaum, with a foreword by the Editor. The book is devoted especially to the work of twenty important Canadian artists who have developed a very personal language through their mastery of one or more of the various techniques in the field of textiles. The artists presented in the book are:

Jennifer Angus, Ingrid Bachmann, Sandra Brownlee, Dorothy Caldwell, Lyn Carter, Kai Chan, Barb Hunt, Barbara Layne, Louise Lemieux Bérubé, Marcel Marois, Mindy Yan Miller, Lesley Richmond, Ruth Scheuing, Joanne Soroka, Joanna Staniszkis, Patrick Traer, Barbara Todd, Laura Vickerson, Yvonne Wakabayashi and Susan Warner Keene.

From April 15 to May 22, 2009, the Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles (MCCT) will take advantage of the publishing of this prestigious book to bring together in its gallery examples of the work of these artists. The art works are varied: murals, sculptures, installations created through the use of new technologies, of traditional techniques and of unusual materials. It is a must-see inventory of creative contemporary Canadian textile art on show until May 22.

The launching of the book and the exhibition will be held on Wednesday, April 15, 2009, at Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles, 5800 St-Denis Studio 501, Montréal, at 5 pm.
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A Slow Reveal... at The Art Gallery at the University of Maryland

Two of my recent web-based works - Entre Ville and in absentia - have been included in a new exhibition at The Art Gallery at the University of Maryland at College Park. A Slow Reveal... launched on March 25, 2009. Over the course of several weeks, the site will reveal projects developed for the internet that employ a variety of forms: from digital narratives, online gaming, open source programming, and database art, to traditional methods of documentary filmmaking in virtual environments.

The first section in A Slow Reveal… explores how the Internet is transforming narratives, through electronic literature, gaming, mash ups, blogging, and transmedia fiction. In these works, the narrative unfolds in RSS syndication through text, still images, video, animation, and sound. The Internet provides individuals and collaborators opportunities to publish innovative re-imaginings of text and image to a potentially large audience, while reaching the smaller niche audiences some works might attract and never reach through traditional print or video distribution. The internet allows for new level of interactivity, from simple navigation and shaping of text to participating as reader/writer/composer/actor. Through mouse clicks and arrow keys, the experience is more like a performance than viewing a static material object.
- Jennie Fleming, The Art Gallery, Associate Director

So far, A Slow Reveal... has revealed works by Kate Pullinger, Chris Joseph, J. R. Carpenter, Andy Campbell, Judi Alston, Annette Weintraub, Roderick Coover, David Clark, Mark Amerika and Jody Zellen.

View A Slow Reveal...
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NON-LINEAR NARRATIVES & MULTI-MEDIA POETICS AT THE ATWATER LIBRARY

Early Saturday morning, March 28, 2009, I packed a suitcase full of books and headed down to the Atwater Library to lead a six-hour long workshop on electronic literature. For the record, although the Atwater Library is the oldest lending library in Canada, their computer lab is state of the art. Also worthy of note: even the smallest of suitcases, when full of books, is way too heavy to carry up and down the perverse number of stairs leading in and out of the Montreal Metro.

NON-LINEAR NARRATIVES & MULTI-MEDIA POETICS: AN INTRODUCTION TO ELECTRONIC LITERATURE was a one-day workshop presented by the Quebec Writers' Federation. This being the QWF's first venture into the realm of electronic literature, I had no idea who, if anyone, would sign up. The turnout was excellent, and students' backgrounds extremely varied. Which was both exciting and terrifying. Picture it: A poet, a printmaker, a journalist, a video artist, an installation artist, an anthropologist, a professor of Intermedia and a Pearl programmer walk into a room. And I'm standing there with a suitcase full of books.

It's amazing how quickly six hours can fly by. We covered some but not all of the course outline and discussed many more things besides. I referred excessively to my own work, and pillaged bits and pieces of talks and workshops taught by friends. A subjective chronology of electronic literature from Stuart Moulthrop here, a dash of film history from jake moore there. Victoria Welby's notes on animation and remediation sure came in handy. A remixology writing exercise lifted from Mark Amerika crossed with an intro to HTML led to a re-mix of Nick Montfort's The Purpling, a poem recently published on the Iowa Review Web.

The Purpling has ten pages, each with eight to nine sentences, each sentence linked to a different page. We were nine in the class, so we each re-mixed a page and left the index page the same. The only rules, that the first sentence of the re-mixed page start with the same first two words as the original (to correspond with Nick's file naming system), and that the re-mixed page have the same number of sentences as the original. We took blueing as our theme: blueing of mood, of sky, as whitening agent. And here's what we came up with: The Blueing.

Thanks to all the re-mixers and re-mixees, and to Lori, at the QWF, for bringing e.lit into the mix.
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